


The Dark

by elbowsinsidethedoor



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: M/M, Zaniida's February Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-22 23:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13775193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elbowsinsidethedoor/pseuds/elbowsinsidethedoor
Summary: The scenario of the challenge is an underground rescue in a blacked out basement. Set in the subway era of the show





	The Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zaniida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/gifts).
  * Inspired by [February Soon Appears](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13541433) by [Zaniida](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zaniida/pseuds/Zaniida). 



John is three levels underground in the dark, in the bowels of the landmark Walker Building. The blackout, created by the machine, is blinding both ASIs. That’s his advantage. He’s got less than an hour to find Harold and get him out. The blueprints of the centuries-old sub levels are etched in his brain, where the darkness can’t reach them. He prays Harold is not panicking. The dark is a mind-killer, one of the steepest hurdles he ever faced in training. It’s why he’s here and Root isn’t.

It was the machine’s decision to keep her on the sidelines. John’s claim that he’s better trained for the mission meant nothing to her, but she took the word of her God as absolute. Machine approval or not, John couldn’t be stopped. Greer’s henchmen have Harold and he’s getting him back. Root’s upset, but he doesn’t care.

Harold will be upset (if and when) he finds out that John’s left a trail of dead Samaritan agents, like breadcrumbs, as he makes his way to him. Their presence points the way to the man they’re guarding.

He’ll welcome Harold’s anger and Root’s resentment — as soon as he gets him out, alive.

 

***

Eyes open or closed Harold can see nothing. The darkness is solid, impenetrable. He knows that he’s seated in a room somewhere in the basement of the Walker Building, a former Grand Dame of New York architecture; built in the 1920s and soon supplanted, overshadowed by the Chrysler and Empire State buildings. For him, now, it may as well be the dark side of the moon.

When the lights went out, the single guard in the room swore and fumbled with his phone to use it as a flashlight. Harold heard him try to raise someone, without success.

“Set one foot outside this room, Mr Finch, and you’ll be shot,” the man warned before leaving, taking the only source of illumination with him. Harold thought he heard a muffled sound through the closed door. He tried but failed to create a picture in his mind of where the door must be.

Escape? He needs to try, but with every heartbeat the possibility recedes … he’s helplessly gripping the sides of his chair, his senses screaming for data. His stomach lurches as though the chair is careening through space.

Is there movement, someone in the room with him? He stifles a cry of fear.

“Harold.” The voice is quiet, impossible.

“John?” he whispers, incredulous. “John is it really you? I’m here.”

“Stay where you are, I’m coming for you.” Harold dares to let go of one side of the chair, waving his hand in front of him.

John touches him, grasps his hand. Harold rises awkwardly, his feet as unsure as if he were walking a plank and any false move could send him plummeting. He gropes his way, hand over hand, slowly along John’s arm to his body and clings to him as desperately as a drowning man to a tree in a flood. John’s hands move over him, calming him. Caressing his shoulders, smoothing down his back, guiding Harold’s hold on him; shaping reality in the void. A warm palm cradles the back of Harold’s head and a rough cheek touches his.

“We’re getting out.” The words are so softly spoken they’re barely more than articulated breath. Harold believes him, trusts him. A finger touches his lips and he understands that he must be silent.

His legs are shaky, each footstep a small miracle.

Through the doorway there’s a change in the air, a draft that carries the smell of hot oil, of machinery. Harold glues himself tighter than a lover to John’s side. If a part of him is aware that he would not hold him like this under normal circumstances, it’s a part of him that has never been where he is now, needed what he needs now. He hugs John’s waist, his thigh moving as his does, because everything beyond him is the unknown. They are at one, he believes; John encouraging the closeness, an arm around Harold’s shoulders, keeping him flush to his side. The other arm, Harold conjectures, must be touching the wall to guide them.

There are pauses, inexplicable detours, things his foot touches he can’t identify. Noises in the distance. They keep moving. Stairs. They climb and there’s some sense, some definition for Harold in the regularity. He’s attentive to the cues of John’s movements. The shifting of his muscles, the textures of his clothes, his solid body. The warm healthy human smell of him and sound of his breathing; these things form Harold’s world.

There is sudden, terrifying commotion below them and a brief beam of light.

“They could have gone this way,” a man says. "No light, don't give him a target." Harold finds himself backed into the wedge of a corner with a sweep of John’s arm. He holds John’s waist in his hands from behind, afraid to impede him but desperate not to lose contact. The swiftness, the fluidity of his movements is astonishing. Harold can’t understand how he knows when or where to aim but the stairwell echoes with deafening gunfire. He squeezes his eyes shut against the muzzle flashes, praying. Hears the dulled thuds of bodies dropping.

Beats of silence. Waiting. Waiting. John turns around slowly in his hold and puts his arms around him. Harold gratefully touches his forehead to the man’s chest, trying to absorb his steadiness. He allows himself to be repositioned by knowing hands. They guide him to grasp a bannister, fingers covering his and squeezing briefly. Harold’s other arm is secure around John’s torso, under his coat; he warms himself in John’s heat. Once again he’s held close by his friend and they begin their climb upward, Harold mimicking John’s soft step as well as he can.

“This is it,” John whispers and pushes hard at something; Harold feels the force in the tensing of his muscles. The night seems bright, the streetlights brilliant to his light deprived eyes. He’d be staggering if John weren’t still holding him. A black van is barreling toward them, swerving to the curb.

“It’s Shaw,” John says. The side door slides back and Root is there reaching for him.

 

***

John watches Root fuss over Harold for a while. He’s content to give way to her for now. Bear is the one he envies, his head on Harold's knee. The man is safe, badly shaken, but safe. Shaw, ever the practical one, at least when it came to food, had laid in a supply of Chinese take-out and was currently consuming large quantities of it. John snags the last two egg rolls he can see she’s eyeing. He puts one on Harold’s plate and downs a third of the other in one bite.

“Professor Whistler is on permanent sabbatical, Harry," Root says. "We’ll make sure you have what you need here while we figure things out.”

Harold’s slight nod is resigned. They all know his cover is blown. John regrets Harold's lack of freedom on one hand, but on the other, he likes the idea of him kept safe here, not taking risks on the street. Easier for him to keep tabs on.

There’s a decent bed in one of the alcoves. He had taken care of that a while back. There had been a cot for emergency use but he didn’t think it was good enough for Harold. The cot will be fine for John. He’s got no intention of leaving Harold alone overnight and lets it be known when Root lingers after Shaw takes off with Bear.

“You shouldn’t be here by yourself tonight,” she says, but before she can offer to keep him company, John speaks up.

“He won’t be.”

Both Root and Harold look at him, her eyebrows raised. His expression, grateful.

She has her priority in life, the machine. He has his, the man. He has something else now; the sense memory of Harold holding him. It’s not the first time they’ve touched. Usually John is wounded when Harold touches him; bandaging, taping. Once, stitching. He’s taken John’s arm on the street a number of times. John remembers every instance. He’s touched Harold’s shoulder, his arm, the small of his back. But not like today.

Harold Finch isn’t the kind of man he’s ever had sex with. Isn’t the kind of man to take sex lightly, which is the spirit in which John engages with men — not part of a committed or romantic relationship; that kind of thing began and ended for him, with Jessica. He’d thought maybe, at the beginning with Harold, something might happen. It never did and the years slipped by without it. Their relationship, the work, was more important than any stray impulses. Always had been, always would be. But today in the dark was like meeting again for the first time, physically closer than sex in a way.

John wants to be near him now, alone. Wants something like the time that should come in bed after a rigorous fuck. What in the old days would feature cigarette smoke wafting lazily over a pair of tired lovers. They hadn't made love ... but they'd been close, very close. He wants some afterglow.

“John …” Harold begins, when the lights are low and they’re side by side in separate beds. A normal darkness. Despite the lack of windows the subway is never blacked out. There is distant light from the subway car, guide lights near the ancient restroom and the lockers; the colored lights of the servers. He can see his friend’s shadow-filled silhouette. The pause seems endless, and John considers reaching out to touch him, but doesn’t.

“Are you warm enough?” he asks him, to break the silence.

“Yes.” The covers rustle as Harold turns toward him. “Thank you, for today. Letting me hold you like that. I’m glad you’re here now. Thank you.” Another pause. John waited, sensing more to come, wanting more — to hear him talk and to hear about … the holding. “The way I behaved … you must think me a terrible coward,” Harold says, finally.

He’s the bravest man John’s ever known. The best man.

“No. You did great.”

Now he’s the one pausing, unsure of what to say, afraid he’ll say too much and how it will sound. How can he tell him that it was beautiful being held by him, feeling his absolute trust, their bodies attuned.

“Would it be all right,” Harold breaks the silence this time, “to hold your hand for a little while now.” It would be more than all right. It would be perfect.

“Give me your paw,” John says, relaxing, stretching his arm out to rest on Harold’s bed. He’s delighted to hear the man’s soft laugh. A warm hand finds his, fingertips trace his palm, find his calluses and caress them, making him shiver.

**Author's Note:**

> The Walker Building is fictitious. I made it up to give weight to their location without requiring research on any actual building's basement!


End file.
